"I'm excited about it," Thistle said. "I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed working with the boys, and I look forward to working with the girls now."

Thistle has a number of years working with the boys team under former head coach Mike Gross. After Gross retired last year, Thistle was offered the job with the girls team. He says the previous coaching experience will help him take over the program this spring.

"I worked a lot with the younger boys, so taking over this program, I know it will help," Thistle said. "We have a young team out this year."

His first team will be small and less experienced compared to years past due to a large group of seniors moving on. Four players came out to start the season, and all four have little to no varsity experience between them.

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With a much younger team, the Mustangs have decided to delay the start of the golf season until March 20, giving the team a few weeks of practice time before competing against other teams.

"It's going to help us out," Thistle said. "I'm just looking to try and get them to understand all the rules and what we want to try and do here."

Another advantage with the schedule early in the season will be the Fort Morgan Invitational on March 23, something Thistle hopes will help build up the early confidence for his young team.

"It's crucial to get our confidence early," Thistle said. "For some of these girls swinging the club for the first time in their lives, it's going to take some time. They are learning everything from scratch. Having that time off and being able to work on those things on our home course, and then to play it right away, it's good for us."

Many of the players returning for the Mustangs have experience playing at the JV level in tournaments last spring. Peyton Smith, America Cabral and Nancy Serrano are back for the team. They are joined by freshman Alicia Hilzer. All four will be forced to face varsity competition right away.

To get his team ready for varsity play, Thistle has started slow and is working towards progression with his team in practices during the preseason.

"We're starting with the basics," Thistle said. "We want them to know the rules so they can make the right calls out on the course. I want to emphasize personal goals and to have them achieve those goals."

He added that shooting high scores early is something he is not worried about with his team.

"Being such a young team, I'm fine with that," Thistle said. "As long as they continue to work and see that self improvement, we'll see those scores improve. If they start out at 115, we'll work to get down towards 110 and go from there."

Fort Morgan will pick up most of its action in the schedule in April following spring break. The team is scheduled to compete in four tournaments that month before the regional tournament in May at Pelican Lakes Golf Course in Windsor.

Along the way, they will face strong Northern League teams that proved to be one of the best conferences in class 4A last year. Other schools hosting league meets for the Mustangs this year include Northridge, Loveland, Centaurus and Niwot. Loveland won the state title and had the top-two individual state finishers in 2017.

All the focus in Fort Morgan, however, is slow and steady improvement over the course of the season.

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